


The Daily Grind

by cricket_aria



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Bureaucracy, Coffee, Father-Son Relationship, Incest, Late Nights, M/M, Only not-rated for the sake of people who wouldn't want incest fic in the G-rated section, a couple years post-canon, mentions of past canonical relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:08:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Laguna always makes a point of going over the draft of Esthar's yearly budget before the meeting on it, difficult though it is for him to make heads or tails of it. When this keeps him in the office until late at night Squall comes searching for him.
Relationships: Squall Leonhart/Laguna Loire
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Return to the Iron Triangle - January 2020





	The Daily Grind

**Author's Note:**

> Squall has brewed Laguna Folgers, of course, the coffee of choice for incestuous lovers everywhere.

Almost twenty years of being the leader of a country and Laguna still hated when it came time to go over the nation’s budget.

No one expected the President to know all the details himself, of course. He had all types of accountants and advisers who knew better than he’d ever managed to learn exactly what was needed to keep the nation running. They’d be outright gleeful about it if he just let them do their thing without making them explain their plans in understandable words instead of indecipherable jargon, and they’d done well enough at their jobs over the years that maybe they could be trusted to do so. But Laguna could still remember the way things had been when he’d first taken over, when staff members left over from Adel’s old guard had tried sneaking in obscene salaries for themselves instead of lowering taxes from their wartime high. It had only been luck that one of them had been one of the large numbers he’d basically chosen at random to ask about during that first budget meeting, when he’d just been trying to look like he was paying attention rather than expecting to actually find any issues, and that lesson had stuck with him over the decades since.

So every year he had them send over a draft of the latest financial plan and would laboriously go over it before the official meetings began. Even after so many years it still took several slow go-overs before he even started to feel like he understood anything, but he thought he could usually at least tell where there were things he needed to ask questions about. Mostly because they seemed to be written out as confusingly as possible.

Sometimes he thought that maybe now that they were together again he should ask Ellone to send him back to himself during his high school math classes for a refresher. He hadn’t paid enough attention to get much out of them the first time around.

He was halfway through what he thought would finally be his last pass-through when the door to his office cracked open. Laguna glanced up, then frowned when he saw who it was. “Squall? Something wrong?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes beneath his reading glasses when numbers continued dancing in front of them even after he’d looked away from his screen.

There’d been a time when he didn’t like having Squall around when he was in the middle of paperwork unless he had enough warning to put his glasses away, they’d felt like a glaring reminder of how much older he was as if there weren’t already enough potential issues in their life. It was a vanity that had quickly been cured by just how obviously Squall didn’t care, combined with Laguna starting to understand him more; Squall would absolutely look down on anyone who’d make their own work more difficult just because they worried about how an easy fix made them look.

Squall shook his head slightly in response to the question and said, “It’s three in the morning.” He was carrying two mugs with him and sat one beside Laguna, before leaning against the edge of the desk and taking a sip from his own.

It was coffee, hot and fresh when all that would normally be available at that time of night was the by-then burnt sludge in the pot one of the maids always kindly left on in one of the break rooms when Laguna was working late. Laguna couldn’t help but smile when he took a drink and found that Squall had gotten the amount of milk and sugar exactly right—a lot of each—even though he’d never once asked Laguna how he took it.

And that was the type of thing that ultimately made Laguna glad, in spite of everything, that there _were_ all those extra years between them. If he’d somehow met Squall when they were both young man, impossible on multiple levels though that was, he thought he might have been Rinoa for Squall all over again. 

The girl had been too young, or maybe just too open, to last for long in a relationship where her boyfriend wouldn’t regularly tell her that he loved her. Not once all the stress and heroics of their war was over and they had to settle down and make things work in their day-to-day life. Even though it had been obvious that he did, obvious enough that even Laguna, then only just beginning to get to know him, could see it clearly—Squall had carried her on his back across an ocean and taken her into space to save her for god’s sake—she was still a young woman and couldn’t trust feelings that weren’t spoken out loud.

Laguna had even thought about giving her advice at the time, loathe to see what had seemed like fate giving him and Julia, and all the feelings they had never gotten a real chance to explore, a second chance through their children crumble away so easily. Kiros had talked him out of it when he’d brought up the idea, insisting that it would be creepy to butt into the love life of the son who’d only just discovered he existed. He was incredibly glad now that he hadn’t tried to help them, though Kiros was certainly equally regretful that he’d talked him out of it; these days the only advice he had for Laguna about Squall was “You two _can’t_ keep doing this, Laguna, you _must_ know that.”

(Briefly it had been “Either you tell him the truth or I will”, before he’d actually gone through with his threat and Squall made it clear that Laguna hadn’t been lying when he’d insisted Squall did know, and that regardless of what his blood might say Cid Kramer was the only one he’d even begin to consider a father. Laguna couldn’t even be that upset about it, depressing though it was that his oldest friend was unwilling to trust him about that, he was glad that Kiros had wanted to protect Squall that strongly. And, when it came down to it, for all that he made his disapproval plain he also kept his mouth shut about the truth to the rest of the world when one word to the press could bring everything falling down.)

Laguna would have been the exact same way as Rinoa as a young man, hapless when it came to recognizing things that had been left unspoken. He’d been the man who had spent months on end staring moon-eyed at Julia without ever once recognizing that whenever he caught her looking back she hadn’t just been glancing over the crowd, even though she’d done it often and lingeringly enough to inspire her most famous song. The only reason he’d managed to avoid making the same mistake with Raine was that he’d accidentally overheard a conversation he wasn’t meant to (and for years he’d almost wished that he hadn’t, so she might still be alive and safe, but now he could only be glad that because of that moment he had Squall by his side). If he’d faced Squall’s cool-eyed silences when he was young he’d have assumed the other man hated him and done his best to avoid him.

But for almost twenty years one of his best friends had been mute, and that had given him the experience he’d needed to become good at picking up on what had gone unsaid.

All Squall might have said when he came in was the time, but that meant he’d been up that late himself concerned that Laguna hadn’t come home yet even though Laguna had warned him he’d be working late. He’d dragged himself out through the dark streets when he realized Laguna was probably getting tired, tossed out the swill in the break room when Laguna would have poured it down his throat without complaint like he had so many other late nights. He’d fixed his drink the way he liked it just from watching in the past, not needing to ask.

Why would Laguna need Squall to force out words that made him uncomfortable when every action he’d taken on that path, and so many others he’d done in the past, so clearly said “I love you”?

“Thanks, Squall,” he said, putting aside the cup after a few more sips, “but I really shouldn’t drink much of this. I finally am almost done.” He looped his arm around Squall’s waist and rested his head against his stomach, “And I’d like to go to sleep like this when I’m done, not be jittery from caffeine.”

He was close enough that he could hear the lightest breath of air puff out of Squall’s mouth, a laugh that no one else would have recognized as such even if they were able to hear it. “You could,” he said, raising one hand to settle on the back of Laguna’s head, just the tips of his fingers twining lightly into his hair. “I could check your notes for anything you’re missing. Budget, right?” He grabbed the corner of the monitor with his other hand, twisting it more towards himself.

Laguna had never even considered while he was going over it that Squall would have to do the same thing for GARDEN, each of them thrown into leadership positions they weren’t meant for in one of the odd commonalities between their lives that Laguna had once looked warmly on for giving them similarities he otherwise couldn’t find, but now usually tried not to think about in that light. He didn’t know how one for a military complex would compare to that of an entire nation, with its many fewer people but also likely actually more money flowing through it than the exceedingly isolationist Esthar, but maybe his fresh eyes would catch something Laguna’s missed.

“Should I take this as you saying I need to sleep?” Laguna asked, then teasingly added, “Or are just hoping that while I have my head down here I might decide to work a little lower instead?” before lightly grabbing the button of his fly between his teeth and tugging it, too gentle to be truly suggestive.

“Drink up for energy, if you do,” Squall said blandly, even as he pushed himself all the way up onto the desk, shifting sideways a little to offer his thigh as a pillow more better-placed than his stomach. “Just from this page on? I’ll say if I see anything. Sleep.”

Laguna smiled at being so gently bullied towards napping, turning his head to kiss Squall gently above his hip before letting his head settle down. “I love you,” he told him easily, the words that might never come so quickly to Squall’s own tongue but that Laguna had no doubt he still liked to hear.

Sure enough Squall’s only vocal response was a quiet “Hn,” but the tone of it was warm and a moment later the hand he still had on Laguna’s head began softly stroking through his hair, soothing him towards sleep.


End file.
